


Moving Lightly Between

by verushka70



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Compulsion, F/M, Jealous Damon Salvatore, M/M, Manipulation, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 12:13:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verushka70/pseuds/verushka70
Summary: Katherine didn’t start Stefan and Damon’s rivalry. But she was the lit match to that dry kindling.Elena wonders if she can cool the fire smoldering between them, or if she is a lit match, too. (Or maybe gasoline.)





	Moving Lightly Between

**Author's Note:**

> Canon-compliant to the end of S1, parts of S2. AU-ish after mid/late-S2 (and S3/S40 because fanfic isn't as cowardly as network television writing.

  
  
  
  
  


She moves lightly between them, expertly playing upon their competitive, youthful impetuousness. The inherent rivalry of two brothers -- one favored by a parent, the other failing to live up to expectations -- is Katerina’s tool to separate the two halves of the whole Stefan and Damon are to each other. That they have been, since they lost their mother -- despite their father’s machinations.

Failing to live up to expectations she understands, having failed to live up to her own parents’. But that (and recognition of parental hypocrisy) can make one cynical, a poor state of affairs. Katerina is drawn more to the shy sweetness and uncomplicated happiness of the younger, favored son, Stefan.

Damon is on the cusp of a bitter joy all too familiar to Katerina. (You can only fail to live up to expectations for so long before you revel in it). Its kernel was probably in Damon before he joined the Confederate army, but Katerina has seen war both hollow men, or make them hungrier for life. Damon has a little of both. Because of it, he swings wildly from cynical pessimism to rising hope and burning desire... a desire to prove himself the better brother, the better lover, the more impassioned suitor. (This pleases Katerina immensely.)

Damon wastes no time on propriety (unlike his brother Stefan). He does whatever she wants. He denies her nothing. His overwhelming infatuation and often open and unseemly desire for her is sweet candy... But it’s also sugar that sickens after one over-indulges.

If Katerina thought about it (she refuses to) it might only sicken her because deep down in a strangely detached way, she wonders why anyone would love her that much. (There must be something wrong with the Salvatore brothers.)

Still young enough to mold, they are already men, past the age of reason even before her arrival in Mystic Falls. Really, though, they’re just two motherless boys with a strict and controlling father who one pleases and the other displeases. (But of course there’s something wrong with them -- that’s why Katerina picked them, after all.)

For the hangover of Damon’s sugar sweet love she seeks out Stefan’s restraint and manners, his gentlemanly courting. She hears with vampire senses that which Stefan doesn’t: Damon’s steps trailing far behind them and his stealthy spying when she and Stefan stroll around the plantation and garden. She feels Damon’s eyes burning on her back as dusk falls and she and Stefan walk slowly, talking, flirting, not touching.

Stefan’s kisses (finally) move from the gloved back of her hand, to press his lips where he’s unbuttoned the glove at her wrist. The warm, living softness of his lips is luscious -- and loving. To stop butterflies she’s far too old to be feeling, Katerina can’t resist a glance over her shoulder, looking for Damon while Stefan’s head is bent over her wrist.

She finds Damon’s eyes in the leaves, distinguishable from growing shadows and unkempt brush that thickens into forest at the edge of the plantation only because of her preternatural night vision in the deepening twilight. Damon’s fine dark brows are drawn tightly down and together, his face half-contorted in hate.

Turning back to Stefan, Katerina smiles in satisfaction, knowing the coin of love has two sides. By playing both, Damon is utterly hers.

She pulls his strings, but only to weave a net to save her if Stefan should fail her.

* * *

She moves lightly between them, careful not to tangle herself in the fragile thread of resentful brotherhood between them.

Elena loves Stefan to distraction. He was and is desperately needed, both a distraction and living fiction (he can’t _die_ , he _can’t_ die -- that’s what she’d thought then -- so he can’t ever leave her). He bookends her all too tragic reality, her recent past.

Damon she didn’t ignore or dismiss -- his animosity towards Stefan, their raging family issues, put her on guard. But the night they opened the tomb, Elena saw that despite the very real danger Damon posed, his villainy was just the top layers of a careful construction. The look on his face when he realized Katherine wasn’t in the tomb -- raw shock, then hurt bewilderment, then naked grief, finally dawning, bitter anger -- revealed depths of feeling (of _other_ emotions, _human_ emotions) she hadn’t counted on.

Damon’s loss was somehow almost more tragic than all of hers. Not that there is a contest whose life is worse; not that Elena measures the pain she feels against others’. What an absurd thought: sorrow is _sorrow_. It can be a bottomless well you fall into again and again, wondering after the umpteenth time, why you drag yourself back up.

But love makes you -- for your brother’s sake, for your aunt, especially for the sweet love you have found. You find reasons although love of family, of friends, of a new boyfriend doesn’t erase sorrow... it just kind of counteracts it. Gives you reasons to get up in the morning. Realizing how precious it is, how precious _they_ are -- family, friends, new love -- and how easily they can be lost is something you learn the hard way, when you lose so much so quickly... When you find yourself captain of your own rudderless ship with love the wind in your sails, though you feared there would never be wind again.

The tragedy of Damon’s loss, founded as it was on lies and betrayal of the woman (the vampire) Katherine (who made him what he is), is written on Damon's face, on his body. In a split second before his anger rises, Elena sees a glimpse of that torn-away emotion on Damon’s face: shock and grief like a gut punch break his needful hope and certainty, his mouth and shoulders trembling and twisting just before his desperate rage surfaces.

Elena has had an un-asked for bounty of tragedy. But the ordinariness of it -- the _randomness_ of the universe in handing down her tragedies -- while bewildering, is not deliberate. Katherine’s betrayal _is_.

Katherine maybe didn’t start Stefan and Damon’s rivalry, but if their sibling rivalry was dry kindling, Katherine was the lit match.

Elena wonders if she can put it out, this fire smoldering and occasionally flaring up between the brothers... or if she is a lit match, too.

Or maybe gasoline.

* * *

She compelled them both. Stefan, once he learned of her true nature, was fearful. His instinct for self preservation proved strong; compulsion was required to overcome it. Eventually, her seduction was complete and Stefan was utterly smitten. It pained Katerina -- Katherine, she reminds herself -- to compel him. Almost. Were it not for the pleasures he provided, she might feel guilty, so pure was Stefan’s love for her.

A whisper in the back of her mind hinted at new beginnings: that with Stefan (...and Damon), perhaps there could be a starting over for her. But Katherine was too practical and too cynical ( _wounded_ , comes the whisper from the back of her mind; she shoves it away) to truly believe in new beginnings. That’s for fools. There were only new countries, new cities, new towns -- new dresses, new spells, new plans. A whole New World and a life there that she could never have imagined while she was human. She knew best how to run, how to protect herself. So that’s what she did, and that’s what Stefan made her feel -- ridiculously protected, despite the fact that he was human. For now.

Damon’s instinct for self-preservation -- so much sharper and more carefully honed than Stefan’s, perhaps by soldiering in yet another stupid war -- went out the window like bathwater, with Katherine. She secretly preened about it; Damon was so easy to manipulate.

But his obsession with her and his jealousy of Stefan could be dangerous. She needed them both, so Damon needed to be put in his place. She took the reins before he became as controlling and suffocating as men were wont to be when given the opportunity. Jealousy of the brother he loved would keep him on tenterhooks and under control.

She arranged to have Damon waiting for her in her room one evening when she and Stefan attended a boring dinner at some Founding Family’s home. When she entered her room with Stefan, Damon started up from the chair near the foot of the bed where he had been waiting, compelled, since late afternoon.

“Katherine!” Damon’s eyes narrowed. “What is he--”

Stefan looked surprised, then concerned. “Damon? Katherine, what is he--”

She crossed the room to Damon, vampire swift, and looked him in the eye. “Sit down and keep silent,” she said firmly. He fell silent and sank back down to the chair.

“Katherine,” Stefan protested. “I thought we were --”

She was back at his side so fast Stefan flinched.

“We are, Stefan, we are,” she said soothingly, looking him in the eye. “Your brother’s gone. We are alone now.”

His furrowed brow cleared and that part of the room where Damon sat became Stefan’s blind spot. He didn’t even look in that direction again.

“Now, where were we,” she murmured, taking Stefan’s hand in her gloved hand and laying her other hand along his cheek.

Out of the corner of her eye, Katherine observed Damon silently watch as Stefan unbuttoned her gloves and kissed her cool flesh at the wrists. Soon Stefan was peeling Katherine’s gloves off, his lips pressed to hers, his mouth sliding over her cheek down to her jawline, to her neck. His breath quickened and, across the room, Damon’s did the same. Katherine pressed Stefan’s warm lips to her décolletage and he succumbed hungrily. His strong hands firmly encircled her corseted waist. As his hot mouth dragged from her cleavage up her neck to her mouth, his emboldened hands moved up to her breasts, still trapped in the corset.

By the time they divested Katherine of her dress so she stood only in chemise, corset and petticoats, Damon’s chest heaved like a hard-driven horse. She pushed Stefan down onto the bed, but took a detour around the foot of the bed and stopped by Damon.

“You can’t stand it, can you?” she murmured, almost pitying him. “Keep silent and do what comes naturally,” she added quietly, looking him in the eye.

“Who are you talking to?” came Stefan’s faint protest from the bed as he struggled out of his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt.

“No one,” she said, coming to the other side of the bed.

Stefan sat up to press his lips to her bare shoulder as she settled onto the bed with him. His grip around her corseted waist was strong, but not strong enough. She slipped from his grip, met his mouth with hers, and pushed him down flat on the bed. He sat up on his elbows then, letting her control and deepen the kiss as she sat astride him. She felt the heat and hardness in Stefan’s pants through all her petticoats.

Her vampire hearing told her Damon had slipped off his suspenders, just as she ground down on Stefan and he reached up to unpin her hair. Within the boundaries of her compulsion, she wondered what would come naturally to Damon next time -- joining them, or touching himself.

Her lips smiled over Stefan’s when she heard Damon unbutton his pants and then the fleshly sounds of him manipulating himself, his breath quickening. Next time, Katherine thought, the compulsion will be more specific.

* * *

It’s not supposed to be Damon at the bottom of those stairs. He is not supposed to escort her at the Founder’s Day Gala. Elena’s heart is in her throat when she sees him; it means something is wrong, terribly wrong, that Damon is there and Stefan is not.

Elena pretends not to see the look in Damon’s eyes as he watches her descend the staircase, pretends not to see the way his breath catches, his eyes widen, his features soften slightly, the way he _doesn’t_ pull his expression back into his usual smirk. It’s easy enough to pretend she doesn’t see Damon’s reaction -- it’s there, something she files away on autopilot, knows without knowing -- because Elena’s thinking only of Stefan and of trying not to fall down the stairs in high heels and a ball gown. (Her mother would have been mortified if that happened and, really, she’s only going through with this in memory of her mother...)

She moves lightly when they dance, trying to remember the steps and movements. Damon -- when was the last time he danced this dance? A hundred years ago? You’d never know it by the way he dances with her; he seems to know the dance by heart. If Elena weren’t so worried about Stefan, she’d wonder how many times Damon danced this dance a century ago.

Their closeness, the almost but not quite touching each other, is warm. Elena feels heat in her cheeks. She isn’t supposed to be noticing that -- she’s thinking of Stefan, only of Stefan -- but there’s something almost _tangible_ about the way Damon looks at her. It’s deeply flattering. (Frightening.) But her heart is wild and worried, wondering where Stefan could be, wondering if she was too harsh with him, wondering _what he’s doing_. Damon, she tries not to think, has a level of control Stefan doesn’t. Which is just ridiculous, because Damon’s like an impulsive child.

Later, much later, Elena remembers their dance together. She thinks that was the second time Damon’s humanity surfaced (finding Katherine wasn’t in the tomb was the first). But it was the first time his human feelings slipped under her skin, got inside her like a virus... though shortly after that he “killed” Jeremy temporarily (no thanks to Damon) and pissed her off so much that she wanted absolutely nothing further to do with him.

* * *

Was there ever any possibility that she wouldn’t end up between them? Elena wonders wearily sometimes. Other times, safe between them in bed, riding waves of pleasure from them both, _worshiped_ by Stefan and Damon’s hot mouths and cool hands, Elena can’t imagine why she ever doubted (or feared) this ending.

She is not Katherine. She does not manipulate either of them. Her love for them both is genuine, haplessly devoted to her dual protectors, and honest to a fault. So honest that Damon sometimes stalks off in a pissy mood when she calls him on his shit. He moodily drinks alone in the library until he catches her on the stairs down to the laundry room, basket of dirty clothes on her hip.

Within moments of entreaty and apology whispered into her hair, giving her delicious goosebumps, she drops the basket to wrap her arms around him. Clothes and basket tumble down the stairs as Damon slides out of her arms, going to his knees a step below her on the stairs, watching her face to make sure it’s okay as he unbuttons, unzips, and strips her jeans and underwear off her.

Has he _ever_ apologized to anyone else? actually said the word “sorry” to anyone other than her? Stefan, maybe? She doesn’t know. But when Damon murmurs it with genuine remorse into her neck... mutters it as he nibbles first one nipple through her shirt, then the other... whispers it in warm little puffs between her legs while he pushes his shoulders under the backs of her knees and cups her ass, as Elena grips the handrail to keep her balance (though he would never drop her)... she knows this is the most sincere and unguarded Damon and his apologies are.

Stefan sometimes joins them, to Damon’s strangely bashful delight. Other times, he waits out of sight for them (well, her) to finish and then appears, smiles, and shakes his head, as he helps them pick up and bring the clothes and basket to the laundry room where Elena was originally headed.

Sometimes, when that happens, Damon pulls Stefan into a dark corner of the basement, and she hears them whispering and kissing as she sorts whites and delicates from colored clothes. Other times Damon just slings an arm around Stefan’s neck and they watch Elena load the washer until she throws dirty underwear in their faces. Then they both chuckle and then both brothers jog up the stairs to get the rest of the laundry for her.

It’s bizarrely normal and... comfortable when the three of them sort clothes, load the washer, and unload the dryer together, folding or putting warm clothes on hangers. The work goes quickly with the three of them helping. It occasionally wistfully reminds Elena of helping her mom roll socks and fold whites years ago. (Though experience has taught her that Damon is so fussy about his shirts, he prefers to iron them himself or take them to the cleaners in town. Fine with her; she hates ironing.)

* * *

Stefan she never doubted, even at his worst. Damon she did; they both know it. So of course he feels the need to prove himself worthy of her repeatedly, worthy of Stefan as well. They both know why, though it’s far too late for their collective or individual wrongs to be addressed, and hashing them out again would serve no purpose: they’ve all been bad, done terrible things at this point, they all know it, and while Stefan would normally dwell on them, Elena has learned to firmly march forward intent on making only _new_ mistakes.

Whereas Damon ignores the prick of his conscience until it is like grit in his teeth. Then he comes to make amends to one or both of them. Though Elena usually tells him he doesn’t need to, Damon’s typical amends are often romantic and sensual, so she lets him, lets him show the old-fashioned, courtly side of him few have ever seen.

Remarkably, or maybe not, Damon’s love feels genuine. It is in the way his touch lingers on her cheek and on Stefan’s upper arm, when he slips naked out of their bed. It’s restless; _he’s_ restless. He often doesn’t stay in bed with her and Stefan immediately after, doesn’t revel in the delicious post-coital glow. Not the entire time anyway. Damon is up and out of bed, unnecessarily -- in the bathroom, or out to the balcony for a moment, a towel or a knitted afghan around his waist. Stefan nuzzles the back of Elena’s neck, his words murmured into her hair as comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans. She can doze, but she can’t sleep until Damon is back in bed with them.

With Stefan curled naked behind her, his arm around her waist, Elena once glanced at the crack of light coming from the bathroom door, ajar. There stood Damon, looking at himself in the mirror, then looking down and closing his eyes. His hands tightened on the edge of the sink, and he leaned over it, head hanging down. He turned the water on, but just watched it, lost in thought. His shoulders slumped for just a moment. But then he fiercely turned the water off, and, not glancing in the mirror again, turned the bathroom light off and came back into the bedroom.

He dropped the afghan around his waist and slipped into bed on Elena’s other side, his hands sliding all over her body though she was spent and he and Stefan were too. It was as if he had to be certain she was _really_ there… as if he still doubted that this was possible, that he could _have_ this, with her, with Stefan... with _both_ of them.

Even as Damon settled in next to her, his hand slipped from her shoulder to Stefan’s behind hers. He threw a leg over both she and Stefan and, his arm and leg around them both, pulled them both close, so close, so tight she almost couldn’t breathe. But then Damon’s lips were cool and soft first on her shoulder and then on Stefan’s, kissing each.

Stefan shifted behind her, not looking up. His arm moved under hers until he touched Damon’s side. He slowly, wordlessly slid his hand up and down Damon’s flank, repeatedly. Finally, finally, Damon relaxed tucked against Elena. The grip of his arm and leg around them both loosened. Elena inhaled deeply not just because it had been hard to breathe for a moment in Damon’s crushing embrace of them, but with relief because at such times she cannot seem to soothe Damon, no matter what she says or how she touches him. Only Stefan can – and does.

Damon rarely spoke aloud in the immediate aftermath of their lovemaking. Never said the warm and typical words Stefan murmured sleepily into her hair. Even this close to both of them, Damon was still much more guarded than Stefan ever would be. The very few words he chose to speak at such moments he uttered in a hushed voice or a whisper -- passionate, yet reverent.

But his body -- Damon’s body tells Elena everything. And still her heart thrums to give Damon what he never thought possible any more than she did back when she moved lightly between them, negotiating the tricky space between Damon’s jealousy and his love for Stefan...

...and for her.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a WIP begun in 2013. I found it while reorganizing my cloud space. Decided to finish it. Un-beta-ed; all mistakes are mine. If interested in beta-ing, drop a line here.


End file.
